May 25, 2009

Just how insane are sociologists?

One of the new topics in the General Social Survey for 2008 (under "2008 variables") was sexual harassment from clergy members toward the flock they tend. Unlike other, rarer experiences like going to museums, having a priest ask if you're up for some quick butt sex is so common that the survey designers figured they'd explore the topic in great detail. After all, if only one person in your whole survey said it had happened, you wouldn't learn much about who is at risk in general, what such experiences are like in general, etc.

How much fine-grained detail were they expecting? Here's a list of all the questions on this topic:

- Since the age of 18, have you ever been the object of sexual advances / propositions from religious leaders?

- Did this happen with a leader in a congregation you were yourself attending?

- With how many different leaders has this happened to you?

- Did you and the leader ever become an open couple?- As above, for religious leader molester #2- As above, for religious leader molester #3

- Was the leader also your counselor?- As above, for religious leader molester #2- As above, for religious leader molester #3

- Was the leader married at the time?- As above, for religious leader molester #2- As above, for religious leader molester #3

- Did you end up having sex with the leader?- As above, for religious leader molester #2- As above, for religious leader molester #3

- What was the leader's sex?- As above, for religious leader molester #2- As above, for religious leader molester #3

- Did you get into an ongoing relationship with the leader?- As above, for religious leader molester #2- As above, for religious leader molester #3

- Did the leader try to keep you from blabbing about the relationship to others?- As above, for religious leader molester #2- As above, for religious leader molester #3

- Have you ever told anyone about the experience with the leader?- As above, for religious leader molester #2- As above, for religious leader molester #3

- Have you ever told any authority in the congregation about the experience?- As above, for religious leader molester #2- As above, for religious leader molester #3

- Do you know of other people who were propositioned by clergy members?

- When they were propositioned, were they a close friend of yours?

Whew! So, how many victims of clergy sexual harassment were there to get data on these questions from? Out of 1,766 respondents, 42 -- or 2.4%. By contrast, 23.4% said they had been harassed by supervisors at work. Trying to get fine-grained information from such a small population requires oversampling them -- going to a support group or something, not surveying the population at random. Of course you won't find many people to give you details because hardly anyone gets sexually harassed, let alone by a priest.

For comparison, the prison population in the U.S. is about the same percent of the whole population as the people who said they'd been the target of sexual advances / propositions from clergy members. Would you try to find out what prison experiences are like, in gory detail, by asking a long list of questions to a random sample of the country? Not unless you were a fucking idiot.

But ever since the overhyped scare about child molesting priests back in 2002, everyone has had their rational judgment clouded -- I mean, c'mon, everyone knows someone who was in that situation, even if you and most of your friends were lucky enough to escape the epidemic. So, how many people actually do know such a someone? According to the GSS, 9.3% of the population. This is what we'd expect if each respondent who said they'd been harassed told 4 people about it. Sounds reasonable. So much for "everyone knows someone."

I wonder whether we've made any progress beyond the witch hysterias of the Early Modern period -- "Have you been sexually harassed by a witch? If so, by how many, and how often? Did you have sex with the witch? Did you form on ongoing relationship? Did the witch try to get you to hush up about your witch-fucking sex life?"

Surely when people 400 years from now read the 2008 GSS, they'll wonder what drugs everyone was on, that they probed a random sample at such length about something that obviously happened to hardly anyone.

In her report for the U.S. Department of Education, Shakeshaft says that about one in every ten American children has been sexually abused in some way at school.

Compare that with Catholic priests. A study by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops sai that 10,667 allegations of sexual abuse of children had been made between 1950 and 2002. Multiply that by four to account - generously - for unreported cases and it comes to 821 children abused by priests per year. Priests: 820 abused children per year; educators: 32,000 abused children per year. For those of you who went to public schools, 32,000 is greater than 820.

As with any crime, one perpetrator can affect many victims. If 9.3% of people know one of the 2.4% affected, what percent are perpetrators? I can only imagine it is pretty small.

Some of the questions are truly bizarre:

"Did you become and open couple?"

How is that the same as being molested? Since most clergy marry, how the heck do they get married if they never date?

Is it sexual harassment or a "proposition" to be asked on a date?

Does an openly gay Anglican priest get relabeled a "molester" when he breaks up with his boyfriend?

I am so confused!

I understand the questioners feel there is a justifiable zero tolerance for sexual advances from clergy, vs their general disinterest in sexual advances by prison inmates, but these questions are pretty blurry.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought that was a really strange topic to ask about. Even worse, besides the supervisor/clergy harassment thing, the only other sex questions asked were about homosexuality which is also applicable to a small minority of the population. I know it's selfish to complain about a pool of statistical data that's free to the public but I'm still waiting for a TENSCALESEE variable - something that applies to everyone.